Rock Creek Park in Washington DC has all the usual city park things, biking, golf,

tennis courts.

But if you wander just a little bit off the path, you'll find something unexpected, something

we can say for sure that no other city park has, stones, gigantic, gigantic stones.

They are in 20 foot stacks piled up behind a maintenance shed.

And some of the stones are simple sandstone, some are marble, some have ornate cornices

and decorations, some are just big plain old slabs.

And they look like the ancient ruins of some lost city, which in a way is kind of what

they are.

Because they aren't just any stones, they're pieces of the capital building.

Yes, the United States capital building in Washington DC.

I'm Dylan Thuras, and this is Alice Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, a trip deep into the woods, to find out how pieces of one of the country's most

famous buildings wound up here.

That's after this.

If you have ever done a home renovation, you know it can be a hell on earth.

Your whole house is covered in dust, there is a constant loud banging sound in the background,

and there are so many, many moments when you ask yourself, what have I done?

And imagine, as often it feels like, that this renovation just never, ever ends.

The capital came about the 1790s, and it was never finished.

It's been continually under construction, repair and expansion for the last 200 years in

...